


A Tragedy Named Hawke

by seor1324333



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Study, Lots of Angst, Multi, References to Depression, and been playing around with my hawke for a long time now, basically a lot of projection and introspection and semi-adherence, even throughout what is likely depression for Hawke and maybe other characters, fighting to live and love and laugh, from memory though i'm not really consulting the game as i write, i have however played the game if not finished it nearly half a dozen times, sorry for long amble in tags, suicide ideation, to the plot and linear timeline of DA2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 02:57:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18357188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seor1324333/pseuds/seor1324333
Summary: She asked him once, ankles crossed on a high chair back, what he would classify her as if she were one of his stories.“A tragedy,” Varric’d said without thinking, partly because he was tipsy on a dozen flagons of shitty tavern wine, mostly because he’d watched his friend over half a decade lose everything over and over again, and tragedy seemed about right when it came to Hina Hawke.She’d cracked a smile at that, half amusement, half grimace.“And pray, Varric, how would I get out of my own tragedy?”For one of the few times of his life, Varric knew of no reply.





	1. Chapter 1

She asked him once, ankles crossed on a high chair back, what he would classify her as if she were one of his stories.

 

“A tragedy,” Varric’d said without thinking, partly because he was tipsy on a dozen flagons of shitty tavern wine, mostly because he’d watched his friend over half a decade lose everything over and over again, and tragedy seemed about right when it came to Hina Hawke.

 

She’d cracked a smile at that, half amusement, half grimace.

 

“And pray, Varric, how would I get out of my own tragedy?”

 

For one of the few times of his life, Varric knew of no reply.

  


 

Hina Hawke held her childhood memories near and dear to her heart, so close that even those nearest to her were not always sure she remembered her past, fondly or otherwise. But Hawke did remember, and she treasured the flashes she could still see to this day - her father and his beaming, proud smile, helping her and Beth carve out their first staves - her mother, who always looked younger, less burdened in these memories, sharing glimpses of worlds caught up in leather-bound pages with the family - Bethany, young and carefree, running screaming with laughter through plains and hills - Carver, ever determined, chasing after his sisters, but always a step behind Hina, never to fully catch up - all this, Hawke remembered, carried with her like a portrait of a lover captured in the space of a locket, so small, so easily missed, and most of all, hers to keep.

 

Because if Hawke were honest, and she was often honest, even when her own mind ached and screamed for denial, she rarely had, in her nearing thirty years of life, anything that was truly her own. Everything she cared for, everything she loved, she shared with another, often family, and when family died off, then with friends, friends that were now all but family in name if not blood. Even the few toys she had as a child she shared, with Carver, who wanted what he thought were cool older kid toys (they were just dolls dressed in fancy wooden armour that Father had carved for Hina), and with Bethany, who Hawke always thought deserved the world (and barring that, then the toys that Hina thought of as her own best friends would suffice). Hina shared her Father with everyone he loved, with their mother, who was never the same, emotionally, physically, mentally, after his death, with her siblings, who looked up to Malcolm Hawke like he was the Maker Himself come to mortal realm, even with neighbours, who always seemed to like the man even while suspecting, or knowing, his magical secret. Hina never minded, not back then, not when she knew nothing of loss and thought everything would work out, just because it always had. Hina was fine with sharing, even after her father died, because she still had Bethany, Carver, and her mother, and if there was one thing Hina did best, it was to love so hard she would break before she relented.

  
  


 

Hawke always thought she would kill herself before letting anything happen to Bethany. She saw her sister still, often in dreams, sometimes in waking moments, captured in frozen moments, of glee at one of Varric’s myriad stories, of stony frowns when Carver was being an ass, of exasperated sighs when someone in the group was doing something terribly stupid and so true to the epithet of “Hawke’s group of misfit friends” that there was nothing to do but to sigh in exasperation. She saw Beth even more clearly than she could recall her death, could see the glint in her sister’s eye as she responded to one of Fenris’ sardonic quips with equal wit with more clarity than she could remember the sight of Beth’s crushed skull on the ground. It wasn’t that she thought Bethany still lived; Hawke wasn’t delusional. She just had a good memory, and could oft-times translate her past into her present, so that figures from the dead would ghost into her present vision, blurring the lines between _loss_ and _now_ without Hawke losing sight of reality. She was a mage who had survived nearly three decades after all. If she couldn’t distinguish fantasy from reality by now, she would have lost herself to demons long ago.

 

 _You should have protected her_ , Leandra Hawke had said to her eldest daughter once. _You should have saved her from herself, Maker damn it! Why, why didn’t you_ do _something, anything? You just stood there and let your own sister be killed, murdered in front of you!_

 

Carver tried to intervene, he always did, when Leandra was on one of her tirades. It didn’t help that neither woman paid much attention to the other Hawke, which probably didn’t help with Carver’s increasing sense of inferiority and invisibility.

 

 _Lay off, Mother,_ he’d said, for once outright standing up for his sister. _You know very well Hina did all she could._ You _did all you could, too. There’s no need to go blaming anyone but the ogre that took Beth away from us._

 

 _She should have lived,_ Leandra sniffed, never one to let others get the last word in. _She should be alive. She should be here._

 

 _And what of me, Mother?_ Hawke had wanted to ask, but didn’t, knowing full well the answer to the question she’d held for a long time now. _Would you rather Bethany be here with us, and me in her place with Father?_

 

“She doesn’t mean it,” Carver said to her later that night, when Leandra had gone to sleep and he’d found his only remaining sister sitting with knees drawn in front of a simmering fire that had died hours ago. “You know she loves us, and you especially. Without you she wouldn’t be here. Without you, none of us would be here.”

 

Hawke looked into embers that barely glowed, ashes that dusted logs that Orana had placed in the pit, Maker bless her strength even though she looked a wisp of a girl. She knew things must be bad if even Carver was there in an attempt to comfort her. Through great effort, she pulled her gaze from the fireplace and, failing at a genuine-looking smile, nodded in her brother’s direction instead.

 

“She’s tired, Mother is. She’s never been as strong as you, could never be as stoic as you’ve managed to be all these years.”

 

 _I’m tired too_ , Hawke thought, but would never say, least of all to her family. The only time her friends could ever pry admissions of weakness from her was when she was drunk and no longer had control of her faculties. So far, Carver did not know that strategy. Hawke meant to keep it this way.

 

“I know,” she said instead, and dropped her gaze back to the firepit. “I know.”

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Without repeating my long ass tags, basically I was trying to fantasize about my Hawke before I went to sleep, as I've done over the past few years on and off, and was hit by the sudden urge to just /write this shit down/. While this work will inevitably deal with death and depression and depressing topics, my goal isn't hopelessness here. I need something to hold onto, and the Hawke I envision in my mind is very good at going on, even when, or especially when, there's nothing to hold onto in her mind. Will update what I've written when I've written, which probably means I'll be posting thousands of words in a few days then not touch the work for some long ass time orz


	2. Chapter 2

Their escape from the Blight was fraught with exhaustion, dogged anxiety, and an aura of dissociation. Leandra Hawke kept muttering under her breath about how she couldn’t believe this was happening to her, to her family, what would dear Malcolm say if he saw them now, and even Bethany, sweet-tempered as she was, was beginning to fray at the edges, snapping at Carver whose face turned stonier by the minute. Hawke was never especially good at keeping people together emotionally; that was usually Bethany’s purview. Her job was to keep her family alive, safe from monsters in the field, and as it turned out, templars in need of saving from strangers.

 

This Aveline Vallen, Hawke could tell immediately, needed saving from no one. She liked the woman from the start, despite her lack of taste in a husband who - Hawke didn’t mind his wary gazes at her, she was an apostate, this was expected, but if he even breathed the wrong way towards her sister she’d gouge his Maker-begotten eyes out. 

 

“A temporary truce then?” Aveline offered, and Hawke, with a warning glance to the templar, nodded. More swords were better than less, and Aveline was right, whatever enmities they held towards each other could wait until they weren’t being chased by ravenous hordes of darkspawn.

 

They ran, dodged, limped, for hours and hours until even Hawke felt the beginnings of exhaustion settle into her limbs. This was only the start, and she was focused on getting out, keeping everyone together and safe, she was too focused, so focused she led the group into an ogre-led ambush and watched, her limbs scrambling to move even as her mind froze, Bethany take a stance between the monster and their mother. 

 

It was over before it barely started, one moment Bethany, defiance blazing in her stance vibrating with life and nervous energy, and the next - Leandra ran to her fallen child, caution thrown to the winds even as more darkspawn poured into the clearing. Hawke did not have the luxury to throw herself on the ground, she had to, had to tear her gaze into the hordes of enemies trapping them in, because unlike Leandra who had a whole group of warriors to protect her while she mourned, Hawke was now alone.

 

“You fight like a madwoman, desperate for death,” Aveline said to her later, crowded in the belly of a ship that would take them to new lands. “I didn’t notice at first. I thought you were merely perfunctory and practical in your moves, but in that fight against the ogre, you fought like you had nothing to lose. It was exhilarating to catch glimpses of. It was terrifying to watch, as a friend.”

 

“It’s probably what caught the Witch’s eye,” Hawke said, not willing to speak of what truly lay in her heart, but not wishing to dismiss the concern in Aveline’s voice. “I got the feeling she likes fearless idiots who take on enemies ten times bigger than herself.”

 

Aveline shook her head, sensing that she would not get from Hawke an admission - of what, exactly? That she wanted to die? That she wouldn’t mind dying? Even if that were partly true, Hawke could not die yet. She still had family, Aveline included amongst them now, to protect, and a favour owed to a Witch who looked into her and laid out her every inner thought like spreading out pages from a book. Maybe she fought with fierce abandon because her mind had taken a backseat, going into autopilot as every thought within her screamed in agony, maybe she fought with reckless glee because nowadays, only fighting made her feel truly alive. Still, these were thoughts Hawke did not know how to exactly express, and did not want to bring out into the world. Her thoughts were her own at least. She meant to keep it that way.

 

“You’re not the only one who lost someone that day,” Aveline said, not unkindly. “All I’m saying is, Hawke, you’re not alone. Someone out there will understand.”

 

Hawke smiled, and was surprised it felt genuine enough. She was grateful, for sure, towards her fellow warrior. Maybe she would take up Aveline’s offer one day over drinks once they got settled in Kirkwall.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bless it's 8:30 am and this fic already got me up and writing


End file.
